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I was wondering if anyone would mention Kundalini. In the beginning of my research I came upon the concept and it sounds extremely similar, in some ways I haven't elucidated on in my first passage. However, I can not be sure of course. My experience differed from, say, Gopi Krishna for example. My hope throughout the years has been just what you described. That I would happen upon the correct teacher at the correct time. Thus far it hasn't happened (except in my dreams. I have a couple of dream figures that seem to guide me). It's funny you mention ayahuasca ceremonies. I planned to go to the Amazon to take ayahuasca and try to speak with a shaman about my experience. I had the plans ready, and all I need was the passport. Passport came back misspelled. Had to change my plans, and eventually I was unable to go. Something similar happened a second time recently as well. The signs have been clear about that thus far :). My greatest hope would be for a high level shaman/sage etc. would at the very least give me some specific insight into the big picture meaning of this experience. (if any other than a divine present of sorts) Do you think it is possible to be taught purely from dreams?

In my opinion the only thing that arises inside of emptiness is the dharma. With dharma independent origination is necessary and the dharma is heard. It is the only sound of awakening. To be alert is required to hear it the first time and it is the only thing independent of all other sounds. If it is read than one has found it on his/her own. Outside of the hometown dream there is a door. Between your thoughts is emptiness. Within emptiness is one thing that is permanent and that is the dharma. It is independent of all thought and is heard. It is a sound so bright. If read than the removal of dharma from dependent origination is difficult to procure due to others connections. If heard than one has found a source of dharma. Not all buddhas dharma's are the same but all originate independently. Meditation sharpens your senses but outside of where you were born lay a multitude of lairs. These places contain all sorts of things with no means to procure them. They are never taken by a buddha for these are the poisons, the dredges and the lack of order. To still one's mind within emptiness and as emptiness requires a massive amount of effort and this comes after listening to one's own thoughts. A pratyekabuddha has no friends for the things they say are never dharmic. To meet one would to be like meeting a ghost of ones own past and not understand why that being has left you for the future. Listening is a dangerous art and leaves no room for peers. The quieter one's own mind becomes the more difficult it is to see goodness in any human. They drift so far from here and presence that it would seem they have gone away into the future but their words and their actions become dependent origination and the pratyekabuddha is alone. Looking for their own past they go to him and seeing him suffering more from an increasingly still mind they think he is suffering alone. He bears his own thoughts and theirs as well. There is no peace for him. Nirvana is a field. And a field is presence. To be alone permanently would be heaven to that person. My own thoughts are something like to turn the dharma wheel once would be something like the hero's journey. But to meet others and hear them talk about it would leave you looking for someone with fire. IF they have no manhood of fire and think the elixer is with the gods or some non-sense then strange enough to flow through the story leaves one outcast even though symbolic symmetry leads to beauty. The end of the story is just the rising of the sun. So many people can't even stay up alone. Sometimes I think people don't even look up at it.

Those that keep The Sacred Lotus Flower Sutta within their Hearts, "the Mantra is the Mind" and "the Body is within the Fleeting World". Therefore in Emptiness there are no instructive meanings, is there in this: The Great Cart thumps in agitation. The mantra (Namu Myoho Renge Kyo) is the mind (of Buddha) the Body (ultimate reality as it is, 'Jisso', now) is within the fleeting world. The great cart thumps in agitation like the ferry thumps impatiently at its mooring before the journey. So, one must enter the room, dawn on the robe, have Buddha Compassion, sit on the Throne and be Without Self, sense ultimate reality as it is, all in this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightning in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. or So, one must enter the room, dawn on the robe, have Compassion without Choice, sit on the Throne and be Selfless, sense ultimate reality as it is, all in this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightning in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. Ignorance - Fear- Hate - Suffering When people are born, they are born without Choice. When they grow up and learn their Name, they remember they were born with no Name, born without Choice. You learn that if you do not Choose, others will choose for you and that choice maynot be the choice you would choose. “ The cause of all sorrow lies at the very beginning; it is hidden in the ignorance from which life grows. Remove ignorance and you will destroy the wrong desires that rise from ignorance; destroy these desires and you will wipe out the wrong perception that rises from them. Destroy wrong perception and there is an end of errors in individualized beings. Destroy the errors in individualized beings and the illusions of the six fields will disappear. Destroy illusions and the contact with things will cease to beget misconception. Destroy misconception and you do away with thirst. Destroy thirst and you will be free of all morbid cleaving. Remove the cleaving and you destroy the selfishness of selfhood. If the selfishness of selfhood is destroyed you will be above birth, old age, disease, and death, and you will escape all suffering.” "Through many births I sought in vain The Builder of this House of Pain. Now, Builder, You are plain to see, and from this House at last I'm free; I burst the rafters, roof and wall, and dwell in the Peace beyond them all." Is this the essence of Buddhism?

Those that keep The Sacred Lotus Flower Sutta within their Hearts, "the Mantra is the Mind" and "the Body is within the Fleeting World". Therefore in Emptiness there are no instructive meanings, is there in this: The Great Cart thumps in agitation. The mantra (Namu Myoho Renge Kyo) is the mind (of Buddha) the Body (ultimate reality as it is, 'Jisso', now) is within the fleeting world. The great cart thumps in agitation like the ferry thumps impatiently at its mooring before the journey. So, one must enter the room, dawn on the robe, have Buddha Compassion, sit on the Throne and be Without Self, sense ultimate reality as it is, all in this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightning in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. or So, one must enter the room, dawn on the robe, have Compassion without Choice, sit on the Throne and be Selfless, sense ultimate reality as it is, all in this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightning in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. Ignorance - Fear- Hate - Suffering When people are born, they are born without Choice. When they grow up and learn their Name, they remember they were born with no Name, born without Choice. You learn that if you do not Choose, others will choose for you and that choice may not be the choice you would choose. “ The cause of all sorrow lies at the very beginning; it is hidden in the ignorance from which life grows. Remove ignorance and you will destroy the wrong desires that rise from ignorance; destroy these desires and you will wipe out the wrong perception that rises from them. Destroy wrong perception and there is an end of errors in individualized beings. Destroy the errors in individualized beings and the illusions of the six fields will disappear. Destroy illusions and the contact with things will cease to beget misconception. Destroy misconception and you do away with thirst. Destroy thirst and you will be free of all morbid cleaving. Remove the cleaving and you destroy the selfishness of selfhood. If the selfishness of selfhood is destroyed you will be above birth, old age, disease, and death, and you will escape all suffering.” "Through many births I sought in vain The Builder of this House of Pain. Now, Builder, You are plain to see, and from this House at last I'm free; I burst the rafters, roof and wall, and dwell in the Peace beyond them all."

They experience reality directly, everybody does regardless of words. That should be obvious from childhood where there is no vocabulary. A baby must build concepts from perceptions. A mental fog is only conceptual. It is when you have a higher concept then realise you actually have no precise definition for the concept. In fact it is floating. It is that way because it is not grounded in reality. This was something I tried explaining in the 'dream/reality' thread. We can have all kinds of floating concepts and sometimes we attempt to evade actual definitions in case the reality crushes the dream, or because we generally have been unknowingly ignorant.

Oh! Back to dreams. I have mentioned before that I rarely dream. That is, I am rarely aware of what my brain is doing while I sleep. I can't even remember the last time I had a "bad" dream. I still suggest that if we are conscious of our dreams it is because we have "real life" problems we have not yet resolved.

Everytime you go to sleep in deep dreamless sleep then you don't know that you exist - nor the universe exists. So consciousness remains since we wake up and say - wow I had a good sleep. We still existed in our deep dreamless sleep even though our mind was not aware of it. Consciousness is not the mind. Consciousness creates spacetime and energy-mass. So consciousness is always aware of itself but energy-mass and space-time are always transforming into different levels of awareness. So the Emptiness is not the mind's awareness but it is the direct experience of impersonal consciousness - infinite mind. The Emptiness is the space between our thoughts - or the deep dreamless sleep. Our awareness of the Emptiness is the light consciousness - like a dream state. We have different levels of our mind's awareness - just as we do so much instinctively or subconsciously without being aware of it. If we can have consciousness during our dreams then we can have even more awareness of the Emptiness - just like the very first breath on waking up - it is that first thought before actually waking up - we have conscious awareness of our dream state just at that moment. So then as there is deepening of conscious awareness of the Emptiness then we realize the Emptiness is less and less Empty and instead more and more filled with light energy that is aware of itself. To do this we have to shut off the waking left-brain language awareness with writing - and silence that mind - and then go deeper into silence that creates the dream visualization state of awareness through mind concentration at a high frequency of energy. So the Emptiness is the zero point energy in quantum physics - only we can go there directly with our minds and then it's the fundamental level of the universe that is non-local and holographic - everything is interwoven. Spring Forest Qigong Master Jim Nance calls it the fabric of life - saying that what we think of as three dimensional reality is actually one dimensional and the appearance of the three dimensions of space exist within that one dimension - this is how a holograph works. And so all the information is contained within the Emptiness like a black hole of a higher dimension that is smaller since it's higher frequency of energy. That is why the Emptiness is called a golden light of awareness that transforms all of energy-mass and space-time. We get to it deep through the heart.

if i dream about that i would kill myself

As with a dream when we are asleep, it seems real until one day you become aware that it is a dream and become lucid. Similarly for this reality...

Do you also have this feeling he gets around some? I do. Yo Starman, do you? I’m reading your description as if you saw it from outside of yourself, as if being a spectator to a visitation, am i getting it wrong? I think @Aetherous has a valid point for you to consider, the man has chops. Second on the notion of noticing a demonic visitation is more likely in the borderlands between sleep and wakefullness. As far as ”real”* dreams go my working hypothesis is they’re an internal experience, sort of like the pop-science explanation that its either your brain ”sorting” things out after a day of making new connections and rehasing old stuff or that it’s the id blurbing stuff with some editing from the self and superego as far as the imagery goes... One thing that strikes me is that you call it a demon. Not an entity, not a ghost, not a monster or disfigured man; demon is the name you give it. This might be relevant for your understanding of what this could be about. It’s interesting you say it’s a deep fear and that you don’t fully understand it, yet in this dream the demon actually interacting directly with you caused you to yell (expressing, calling for help, activating adrenal response, expelling old breath forcefully to energize and increase oxygenation) and then wake up. This is a long shot but interpreting it there are two powerful actions you undertook, you strengthen your body (yelling) and changed the rules of the situation (waking up). This fear might have quite an effect on you but your dreaming and waking speaks to your being equipped to deal with it. There might be something to the fact it made a hissing/sibilating sound and you’re quite positive it was a he-demon but the face was, as it were, indistinguishable. More possible clues to pinpoint the object of your fear. It wants to touch you when you are most vulnerable or relaxed, there’s a hissing noise, it is male (many possible interpretations there) but it is not a knowable individual, but you can respond and escape the situation. Analyze wide and laterally, look at scary concepts and what you consider yourself vulnerable to or what is worrysome when you feel at ease. Idk where you’re from and what your cultural influences are but what demons are considered to be where you’re from can give you yet more clues to the nature of this phenomenon that you fear exposion to. My notion lf demons is that they posess some sort of supernatural powers, have a maglinant intent and purpose to cause harm either by own volition or by order of others who wield power over them, they’re not really of this world but arent really spirits (neutral, dead folks, nature or location etc) nor deities or immortals. Christianity has demons pegged as fallen angels (often at least) and Chinese folklore etc, fwik, signifies demons to be reincarnations or enitites below human level as far as development goes, they’re angry and raging but can also be under the appropriated service of benevolent deities among others... Idk, food for thought Toni, most of all i advise you not to give this demon more power over you than you’re comfy with. Just because it’s scary it don’t mean it can do anything to you. *real dreams ie the ones that just happen when you sleep, distinguishable from lucid dreams, astral(?) stuff, half waking visions etc.

Your idea of 'rights' appears very fluid. Perhaps that's what happens when you have no grip on reality because you believe life is a dream ? Seems like it could be. I must be like a nightmare in your dream.

At the risk of stirring the hornets nest further. Is life your dream or theirs ? If you can't state that something is true, if you believe life is all a dream. What's true for you is then not true for them. Even if I believed your assertion, by implication you cannot believe it yourself as you have determined it is not reality.

I agree with Wells that the 'dream time' has been a major part of many traditions. So called reality is almost impossible to quantify given the nature of the brain and it's conditioned filtering mechanism. What one experiences is a tiny sliver of the nature of things which makes the experience one of a dream.

I don't find it useful to classify things as real vs. unreal. It's all just what's happening, in any given moment. A dream is a part of reality that perhaps has a different texture, different sensation. But it's still happening. It's input that you react, learn and grow from, albeit in a different context. The dream world and the waking world are one continuous reality, just different states. And all of reality is empty regardless of what's going on.

No implications follow because reality and dream are oxymorons. I know reality directly, I cannot say how it is possible to know it less or more. A table is a table, I cannot know better or less well that it is what it is. So, to say reality is like a dream is like saying a table is not a table. Same old subjectivism, different kind of example.

It may have been caused by your own mind. You are already prone to nightmares (and this technique was said to increase dreams in general). So perhaps this is just another nightmare. The technique doesn't sound demonic in itself, although maybe best to stick with methods that bring good results. I would think real demonic experiences would happen more during a half awake or awake state of mind...not within the dream itself. Although, it could.

It does have a fault ; the centre of the saw ( the nut on the saw) does not slide past the guard . which means if you are doing a shallow cut into wood (not all the way through ) the cut curves up at the back of the wood - the same curve as the blade, as it cant be pushed all the way through. The only solution I can find to this is to place a piece of waste wood behind the job and against the guide to move the job forward so the saw goes all the way across it . Apparently its a design fault in many brands of these saws . No BIG prob ... it is a dream to pack up and put away though .

PHD monkeys? Really.. a person who has passion and goes on to an advanced degree and you call them monkeys. I get the feeling the people coming up with these ideas like say Crick, had degrees in 2 fields and doctorate. They were very well educated. You diss the very people you earlier complimented. Course you game is to pretty much diss everyone, all of mankind, constantly. That's not a good mindset to wallow in. Makes me wonder if its really yourself you're so mad at, that you require constant criticism of everyone and everything. back on subject You seem to think scientific advances are 'just' dreampt up. No, like the RNA they are most often hard working scientists who've studied for decades. Been involved in the cutting edge research and correspondence and used all there faculties, logic and reverie to come up with new discoveries. As Einstein Bernard of Chartres said advancing science by '.. standing on the shoulder of giants'. There's more research and books on esoteric dream work then ever these days. Tons of free stuff too.

imo, we need both, long hard scientific study and dreams/reverie. Famous discoveries and breakthroughs (& poems) have been created in dreams. Some have been created while relaxed bathing. That doesn't mean bathing is the secret. Rather, imo it takes both, the hard study, hypothesis, long drawn out thinking, years of foundational study.. as well as times like dreams and reverie when the mind is set free. For example it does no good to dream of double helix's if you haven't studied proteins and how they connect and work, send information. The genius is more the visual, you have to know your science understand what you have. The best scientists and thinkers seem to use both. I imagine dissing one, and only using the other would lead to less results.

I had a strange snake dream recently too - my partner kasia told me that my pelvis was jumping the whole night, but I was sleeping very deeply didn't know whats happening at all, just swimming and playing with snakes in my dream I guess just releasing old tension and opening certain nadis - I don't know how you feel but I think this is nothing to worry or get excited about take care and a smooth awakening to you

thanks for the encouraging words steve, it is also very beneficial for me to go over these thoughts again and get some imput from other practicioners - my root lama is very much emphasising "the words of my perfect teacher" as the backbones of it all so to speak and once in a while will see if I actually remember the four thoughts in the correct order and can explain them - so I try not to get into trouble on some level (fear based level?) anyway I liked what you wrote very much as well, and it is true and good to remember that I am RT and not Jetsun Milarepa - if i try to be Milarepa probably within three months I have such a horrible Lung-disorder that the rest of the year I need to be a vegetable forgotten on the beach anyhow these teachings are very profound, more profound then they sound and look. They really do transform the mind - maybe not in a nice and pleasant way for some (for me it was a bit hard at the beginning for sure). I feel that psycho-spiritual growth is painful sometimes, but worth the effort. Now how that process is started and unfolds might be disimilar in different systems, but in essence transformation is challenging - and as far as I know, no heros without challenges lets continue with the 10 riches they are further seperated into two sets of five the first five are called something like "the five individual riches" 1) being born a human 2) with all senses intact (means so that there is a possibility to study and practice the dharma, being blind is not a problem, but maybe blind, deaf and mute simultaniously, unless past karma does the trick - and the being just remembers it all and is a natural meditative genius) 3) being born in a central land 4) gaining my lifelyhood in accord with the dharma - or not following wrong livelihood 5) having faith in the teachings the second pair is called "the five circumstancial riches" 1) a buddha appeared 2) thought the dharma 3) his teachings are still existing 4) there are followers who uphold the teachings 5) spiritual masters are guiding students I just explain randomly some of those 10 riches from the first five no.3 is interesting - being born in a central land, that means in a land where the buddhas teachings are present in both scriptural form and as realisation in the minds of practicioners also maybe no.4 needs some attention - not following wrong livelihood, in short a way of earning money that is not harming or exploiting other beings. Now without harm is impossible, thats one of the marks of existence - Dukkha, suffering and within that I think of the all pervasive suffering of compounded phenomena. the example that comes to mind is selling tea as a lifelihood: on first glimpse nothing negative and in accord with the dharma, but only on the first glimpse - because in order to sell tea one is partly responsible for the death of many insects, if it is imported from far away then that means certain negative effects on our planet, and probably some human beings get exploited along the way too so even selling tea is producing negative karma, and basically everything we do unless our motivation and mind is very pure I remember the first time I got a glimpse of what this means, I was in Nepal close to the great white Stupa in Boudhanath (Yarung Kashor in tibetan). I was contemplating those four thoughts daily for 30 minutes at least and I also did postrations either at home or next to the stupa. I had a pretty hard time with these four thoughts and accumulating prostrations, all of it in this strange alien land, and Kathmandu is one dirty polluted city, that didn't help either anyway I was listening to teachings of Tai Situ Rinpoche on the four thoughts, and Rinpoche explained this point of all pervasive suffering, that no matter what you do some negative karma slips in - it opened some sort of understanding (I read and thought about it daily for many months already, but sometimes it takes time to click on a deeper level) anyway that night I a had a dream of ordering a salat in one of the restaurants around the stupa - and I got the salat but when I looked closer I saw it was full of dead worms and insetcs, that didn't really shock me in the dream. I just accepted that this is part of this all pervasive suffering and indirectly I kill insects by ordering salat... since that time this part of the teachings is very easy to remember sounds all pretty dark and depressing, but actually it really was a big house cleaning - I know that now after looking back to those first years of practicing the preliminaries. I also remember that Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche said that reading the words of my perfect teacher and working with the material in there should make you depressed at the beginning otherwise its not doing its job now I am inspired by these thoughts, but yes thinking back on the beginning of working with them.... I was rather grumpy

So we have two challenges at the heart of Dzogchen: don't allow the vision to be buried by your life - by the economy, by politics and so on. Don't let the vision get lost while you are caught up in what happens on a daily basis and in your own conduct. This is the first challenge. The second is: don't let your vision of the Middle Way, the vision of the Great Perfection, suffocate and erase your interest in day-to-day issues - your life, your family, the political situation, among others. Don't let the vision exclude situations from life as if they didn't matter, because they do. Keep this expression in mind: "stillness in the face of movement". As soon as we get out of here, we will all face a great deal of movement and activity in the world outside. There is no doubt about that. Will we be caught up and carried away by these ever-changing conditions and situations in the world, returning to the non-lucid dream of awakened life? Or will we turn off the internet, television, radio, and all media so that we don't have to see or hear any "evil", certain that "this is not for me, I am a practitioner of Dzogchen"? If we do this, we will become irrelevant, won't we? We will be of no significance to the world. Our practice, therefore, is quietness in the midst of movement. ~ Alan Wallace ~

Hi Creighton, My ancestors too were very proud of our family ing genes and image... I am go ing to sleep... yawn ing... will be dream ing of you... see you in the morn ing. Good night. - Anand

Hi MPG Well if you can't get past the superficial empirical level at which you stuck, perhaps there is no point in talking to you. Sarcasm never goes over well in written words. Judging by your statement "What you believe about reality in no way affects how reality behaves or actually is." I guess you have never heard about the double slit electron experiment, where it is said that the very act of observing the path of the electron alters its path. We are inextricably bound to our realities, there is no separate reality from us. Pehaps one day science will ketchup. But to answer your question: "How does a realization help you change the situation you are in?" When you finally realize that you are dreaming you can do several things: You can wake up, or you can remain in the dream and start flying around, you can marvel at the clarity and brightness, you can walk through walls, you can make things appear, like flowers or scary animals, you come to realize that you are the creator in your dream and you can create anything you'd like. Life is a dream. Some people have woken up. They woke up by learning to unlock the secrets of the heart through the acquisition of knowledge and insight. TI

Sigh, I am feeling a bit off balanced here. It turns out my last night dream was telling me that I would experience certain emotional affliction because I would be meeting people of who "unloaded their bad karma" onto me. In this dream, I was in a school with a broken main pipe causing the bathroom sewer pipe to get backed up. All the craps were spilled onto my camera equipment. And this morning I met someone of who was precisely doing this to me. It was my fault too since I was expecting something which it wasn't about to happen. And the next part of the dream I was being interrogated by my old boss concerning questions about my past life. I was like...I couldn't answer him because I really don't know too much about my past life other than some bits and pieces. Well, this morning, I had a nice conversation with someone I knew and he was asking questions that I couldn't answer him. These questions that I couldn't even answer myself. How could I even answer him? I felt kind of embarrassed. This morning I wasn't feeling well. I could have avoided all these by not being in this place this morning or reducing my expectations. Oh well, it is best to forget what happened this morning.